Despite starting strongly, the duo fell away in the swimming and riding events to sit fifth coming into the final combined running and shooting discipline.

Here, the pair came into their own, flying past their competitors to steal gold from Belarusian duo Raman Pinchuk and Stanislau Zhurauliou, who had led the overall competition in the Polish capital after a strong effort in the pool.

"It's never easy to win a gold medal, but we had a good fencing competition which gave us a good start although we were not so good in the swimming," said Prades.

"We improved in the riding, but it was definitely the combined event that made this a good day for both of us and for the whole French team."

Pardes and Belaud opened the relay competition with a solid 19 wins to sit alongside the two Belarusians and the Czech pairing of Jan Kuf and London 2012 champion David Svoboda atop the leaderboard.

Things took a turn for the worse for the French contingent in the pool where they finished down in 13th with a time of 1min 51.18sec.

Pinchuk and Zhurauliou took full of advantage of the slip up to move top of the pile after a time of 1:48.95 for seventh, with the Czech pairing just two points behind in second.

There was no movement in the riding, where 300 points apiece for the top four teams ensured a juicy encounter in the final event.

Valentin Prades and Valentin Belaud put in a superb display in the combined running and shooting event to secure gold ahead of Belarusian duo Raman Pinchuk and Stanislau Zhurauliou ©UIPM



With a seven point advantage over the French, Pinchuk and Zhurauliou took to the combined event hoping to run themselves to gold.

A superb effort by Belaud saw him close the seven second gap, however, with the Frenchman handing over to his team mate with a slender lead over the Belarusians.

Prades maintained the advantage after the changeover to see him cross the line first in a time of 10:18.52.

The Belarusians finished in third place, but still managed to secure the silver medal while South Korea's Woojin Hwang and Woo Jin Lee made an impressive surge, both up the field and up the table, to take bronze.

Previous prospective medallists the Czech Republic finished fourth overall, 28 seconds down on the South Koreans.

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